Duke of Desire (Maiden Lane #12)(51)

She shrugged out of her stays.

He pulled his shirt off over his head, and for a moment she simply stared at that wonderful chest. His wound was healing, she noticed absently. Soon she’d have to take out the stitches.

She mourned that he would have a scar on his otherwise smooth skin.

Then she bent to her slippers.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw him sit and draw off his boots and stockings.

He paused when she lifted her chemise to untie her garters.

She looked up to see that his face had darkened and his gaze was fixed on her thighs.

She rolled off one stocking as his fingers moved to the falls of his breeches.

Her second stocking came off as he slid his breeches down.

He stood in only his smalls, the fabric over his groin tented.

Her breath was coming faster and heat was climbing up her breast.

She bent to grip the hem of her chemise.

He unbuttoned his smallclothes.

She pulled her chemise over her head and stood nude before him.

He kicked off his smalls and she could see the dolphin tattoo on his left hip. He prowled toward her, his cock swinging as he came. It was partially erect.

And she knew what she wanted.

“Lie down,” she said, and she couldn’t recognize her voice. It sounded slow and languid and low, as if it were warm honey.

She felt the place between her legs heat.

He cocked his head at her, and for a moment she thought he wouldn’t obey her. He seemed a god of the darkness, scarred and black haired and gray eyed. He was tall and lean but with ropes of muscles down his arms and legs. A formidable creature. A creature accustomed to wielding power. Did such as he follow the commands of mortals?

But he humored her, crawling onto the bed and settling himself in the very middle, sprawled against a pillow like an Ottoman potentate.

She walked to the side of the bed and reached up and began taking the pins from her hair. Drawing one out at a time, letting them drop to a china dish on the table beside the bed, each making a small plink in the quiet of the room.

He stared at her breasts and then lower, at the curls between her legs.

She saw him swallow.

Her hair uncoiled down her back in a mass. She shook it out, running her fingers against her scalp to relieve the tension from her hair’s having been pulled taut all day.

Then she climbed on the bed.

She crawled right between his spread legs and curled up there, leaning down to examine all that made him male.

His penis jerked as she watched, and she couldn’t help a smile. Katherine had described all sorts of cocks to her. Thin ones and fat ones. Cocks with drooping foreskins, cocks that leaned to the left or the right. But even though Iris hadn’t the same experience, she still thought that Raphael must have the most beautiful cock. It lay to the side, in that line that separates the hip from the stomach on a man—or at least a lean man.

Beside his cock was the dolphin tattoo, no bigger than her thumb. She traced the black ink embedded in his skin and then turned to what interested her more.

His penis was straight but with roping veins outlined over the shaft. It was widest at the middle, lovely and thick, and led to a reddened head. His foreskin had drawn a little back, letting the tip peep through, wet and shining.

She touched that wet tip with her finger and he jerked again.

Her gaze darted to his face.

He was watching her, his mouth in a thin line, save for where the scar curled it. He looked as if he barely held himself in check.

She smiled, slowly leaning forward, and licked his penis.

He inhaled sharply.

She looked down at her prize and said, “What do you like?”

“Anything,” he rasped. “Anything you want to do.”

She scowled at him. “But what would you like?”

He closed his eyes as if she tested him sorely. “Wrap …” He cleared his voice and started again. “Wrap your hand around my cock.”

“Like this?” Oh, he was hard under the skin! She’d had no idea how hard a man could be. And at the same time his skin was so soft and hot.

“Now pull up,” he said.

She darted a look at him, a little alarmed, his penis pulsing in her hand. “Won’t that hurt you?”

His lips twitched. “No.”

“But my mouth?” She looked down again and missed the expression on his face when he sighed.

“You can lick if you wish,” he said softly. “But you don’t have to. It’s the sort of thing courtesans do. It isn’t considered very ladylike.”

That spurred her on.

“Isn’t it?” she asked, looking up at him as she bent her head again.

She caught the flare of his nostrils, his lips parting, and then she concentrated on putting him into her mouth.

She licked all around the head, not tiny licks anymore. Broad licks with the flat of her tongue while she tightened her lips around him.

He tasted … hm … Well, he tasted like skin mostly. But the aroma here, near the center of him, was rich. Musky and male, and she felt almost heady with it.

That probably wasn’t ladylike, either.

She popped her lips off the head and kissed down the ropy shaft, tonguing him, mouthing him. She wanted to shove her nose right into the black hairs at the base, but she thought that might be too much, so she licked up the other side of him, making him quite wet.